


White Flag

by Espoir



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Ariadne is an enquiring mind, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Military Background, Military Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6579637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espoir/pseuds/Espoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames have known each other since the military, but, just like everything with them, it's a little more complicated than that.</p><p>---</p><p>“You and Arthur,” she starts, and then realises she has no idea how to finish this. She pauses, Dom has stopped mid-awful joke he’d been telling to Yusuf, and is staring at her with a look of dawning horror.</p><p>“You and Arthur?” she tries, hoping it’s self-explanatory.</p><p>Eames’ face has gone very still. Then he smiles, slow and dark; the kind of smile that gets him into people’s safes and then into their beds.</p><p>“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says, and Ariadne has absolutely no idea what to do with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laceymcbain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceymcbain/gifts).



> The military backstory side of things in this was in part inspired by laceymcbain's Origins Verse which is genuinely incredible and one of the unsung masterpieces of the fandom and if you haven't read it yet then why are you even still here to be honest.
> 
> I don't have a hope in hell of ever replicating that level of genius, but they've taught me so much as a writer and about these wonderful characters, so if you do one cool thing today - make sure you bookmark that fic.

Arthur’s eyes are closed, soaking up the Mediterranean sun with every exposed pore of his skin. The military tags lying across his collarbones are blisteringly hot, enough so to burn, but right in this moment he can’t really be bothered to move them even if they are. There’s a bell tolling distantly that tells him it’s eight o’clock, although the sun is high in a cloudless sky. The air is unnaturally still without the slightest breath of wind, but there are crickets in the grass and a pigeon cooing overhead and the gentle rhythmic splashing of a swimmer in the pool next to him. 

Arthur feels like he might doze off, if that’s possible, he doesn’t know- when cold water droplets land suddenly on his left side and he winces instinctively, frowns with his eyes still closed.

“Mature,” Arthur says coolly, and there’s a light, feminine laugh from ground level. 

“Oh sugar, you’re just _so_ much fun to mess with, I can’t help myself.” The voice is straight from the deep South, born and bred on hot summers like this one, lilting with a teenage boredom and petulance that reminds Arthur vividly of high school. 

He cracks open an eye and glares down at the poolside. The girl is long, honey-skinned limbs with a head of chlorine-dampened blond curls, and she’s folded her arms on the sandy stone, chin resting on top of them.

She can’t be older than sixteen, but when she catches Arthur’s eye she bites her lip and winks at him, fluttering her lashes.

“You’re incorrigible.” Arthur tells her, “and vile.”

The girl laughs again and pushes off from the wall, the too-blue water fanning out around her in waves. “Why don’t you come right on in and join me, honey?”

Arthur doesn’t dignify that with a response, but watches as she eases through the water in several laps of front crawl.

The next time the girl stops on the poolside, she’s not a girl anymore.

Eames pulls himself up and out in one fluid motion, biceps straining a little, water streaming off tattooed skin and down his chest. He’s wearing neon green speedos, and Arthur suppresses rolling his eyes.

“I thought she was rather good myself,” Eames says mildly. “Loretta, I think I’ll call her.”

Arthur huffs a laugh. “She’s jailbait Eames,” he says, even if Eames is right. She _is_ good - incredible, real beyond anything else Arthur’s seen, and he knows she’s one of Eames’ own creations, based only in part on girls he’s seen in reality. Arthur’s lucky if he can imagine himself with longer hair or a moustache in the dream state. Eames’ talent is almost as impressive as his ego.

Eames hums in acknowledgment, leaning back on broad palms and tipping his face into the sun. There’s a darkening stain growing beneath him as the water still dripping from his thighs and torso wets the yellow stone. “Worth having around though. Might come in handy one day. Some people are into that type of thing.”

This is also true; Arthur’s seen the insides of people’s minds, of soldiers and terrorists, and he knows, that somewhere along the line a Lolita-esque 15 year old blond American girl would probably be useful.

It’s realisations like this that always make Arthur grateful his mother will never have any idea what he actually does in the military. 

“What are you into Arthur?” Eames says, suddenly, and it’s a genuine question. 

Arthur cracks open his eyes again and tilts his head sideways. Eames is staring at Arthur’s hand, which is resting palm wards on the lounger, but his gaze snaps back up to his face when he sees Arthur looking.

“What do you mean?” Arthur asks.

“I mean people, pet, or should I say men,” Eames shakes his head a little, sprays Arthur with more droplets, “what sort are you into? Personality quips, physique- twinks, bears, or both?” He leers a little, but Arthur ignores it.

“Real people, Eames. Reality.”

Eames nods like this is an acceptable answer, and then raises a glass of what Arthur can only guess is gin and tonic that Eames has pulled out of nowhere, and downs it.

When the water closes over his head as Arthur dives in, he realises he never returned the question.

  

* * *

 

They’re in Kazan and Dom had led him into a shit-storm of a job without giving Arthur his 72 hours of preparation, which is a minimum requirement, okay, a fucking _blanket_ _rule_ as far as Arthur’s concerned -  and a rule which only applies to everyone else whose last name isn’t Cobb as far as Dom is concerned - and they’re fleeing for their fucking lives for real this time and Arthur would be battering Dom over the head with a blunt instrument himself, if they’re weren’t both currently dealing with multiple gunshot wounds already. Dom’s trying to dial Boris’ number on a cracked Motorola but his fingers are slippery and tacky with blood and Arthur can hear shouts in the room behind them, heavy footsteps outside the door, and fuck, he didn’t want to go like this, he’s only 26 goddamnit-

And suddenly there’s Eames, looking more tanned since Arthur last saw him, and with some god-awful beard across his jaw and down his neck.

“Just like the good old days right Arthur?” he says quietly, smiling down at him with something like fond _nostalgia_ , and starts assembling a sniper rifle from his rucksack in quick, learned movements.

“What the- _fuck_ are you doing here-” Arthur manages, but Eames is pressing a finger to his lips, pulling up the rifle and balancing the barrel on Arthur’s shoulder-

Eames empties the clip into the room behind them, the recoil from each shot jerking down Arthur’s spine, and the shouting fucking finally stops. Eames then turns his attention back to them, shoving bits of gauze into their hands to stem the blood and Dom is batting him away, muttering something about only having taken two bullets to Arthur’s five in-between hisses of pain, and Arthur has bled out enough in dreams to recognise the faint euphoria dulling the blinding agony, but it doesn’t really hurt at all now, he thinks he’s going to be just fine, he can’t even feel his leg anymore-

“Arthur, darling, it’s charming you being all gallant and noble in this time of crisis, I know how fond you are of all that, but if you could just _let me_ take care of you for once it would be much appreciated, alright?”

Arthur wants to bring him up on the pet name, wants to tell him he’s _not_ being ‘noble’ he’s just trying to be practical, but Eames is pale under the tan and his eyes are pinched with concern, strong hands holding Arthur’s against his side and Arthur can’t say a single thing he wants to.

Instead, he says, “I don’t like you with a beard,” for no reason at all, and Eames laughs like it’s been startled out of him. 

“Neither do I pet, neither do I.”

 

* * *

 

Arthur ends up organising most of the wedding because Mal is far too flaky and far, far too ambitious in her estimates of how many flowers they can afford, and Dom is frankly too petrified about the whole affair to even touch the catalogues littering the kitchen table.

It’s inevitable really – the two of them combined. Too little and too much, like ying and yang, except they never quite manage to balance each other out. 

In some ways, it was all inevitable.

But with the wedding it’s Arthur who deals with the Parisian caterers, orders a reasonable quantity of flowers, sends the invites on thick honeysuckle-scented paper, organises the bridesmaid dress to be refitted for Joséphine when her ever-growing baby bump predictably becomes an issue, and its Arthur, of course, who talks Dom out of the taxi to Charles De Gaulle airport the day before the wedding. 

He pays the driver for his trouble and takes Dom’s duffle out of the trunk, then he rounds the side of the car and opens the passenger door. 

“I don’t think I can do this,” Dom says, and his hands are fisted in his hair. They’ve already had this conversation. Multiple times.

“She would kill you,” Arthur reminds him mildly, “she would murder you in cold blood and then start on the guests and I wouldn’t even try and stop her.”

“ _Arthur,”_ Dom pleads, and he looks ill, face pale and eyes beseeching, “I _can’t_ do this. Why did she agree to marry me in the first place? God knows, she is so far out of my league I still can’t believe she even went on a _date_ with me. How can she be sure I’m who she wants? How can-“

Arthur interrupts him by crouching down next to the open car door like he’s talking to a child, and putting a hand on Dom’s knee where it’s jigging violently. He doesn’t usually go for the whole physical reassurance, but he has a feeling today is a special case.

“Dom, that first date was seven years ago. She’s had time to be sure, don’t you think?” He says quietly.

Dom looks wretched, eyes squinting more than normal. “I’m going to mess it up, I can feel it.”

“You’re not going to mess it up. The only way you could possibly mess it up is by not letting it happen in the first place- which is exactly what’s _going_ to happen if you don’t get out of this fucking taxi.”

Dom gets out of the taxi.

Later, when the after-party is in full swing, and the guests have spilled out onto the dark lawn of the garden, their laughter sparkling like champagne bubbles, Arthur is on the dance floor with Mal, swaying beneath a canopy of twinkling fairy lights and drooping wisteria.

His hand is at the small of her back, the ivory silk warm from her skin, and she leans close, more beautiful in this moment than she has ever been, and breathes a soft ‘ _merci_ _mon cheri_ ’ in Arthur’s ear. She could be thanking him for the planning, for the flowers and the invites and Joséphine’s dress- but Arthur knows she is thanking him for her husband, and he doesn’t think he has ever felt this happy.

Much, much later, after the second time Arthur has organised caterers and flowers for the Cobbs, he’s standing in a graveyard with his silent godson on his hip and Dom is pressing a damp handkerchief into Arthur’s palm, eyes more tired than Arthur has ever seen them, and he’s mouthing ‘thank you’ through chapped and bleeding lips, and Arthur can’t think of single reason in the world why Dom should be thanking him.

 

* * *

 

Eames sends flowers to both occasions, because he knows his actual presence wouldn’t be appreciated at either.

He sees Arthur the month after the funeral, three weeks and six days after Dom had fallen off the grid, and he thinks Arthur looked better after a two month simulated tour of Iran.

He’s deathly pale, hair out of place and hideous bags under his eyes that make him look like an addict in desperate need of a fix. He hasn’t been eating properly either, and his usually tailored suit hangs poorly on his shoulders, cuff-linked sleeves slipping over birdlike wrists.

He looks younger than Eames can ever remember Arthur being, and he makes Eames’ heart break just looking at him.

Arthur would never betray Cobb, would defend Dom on the accusations of Mal’s death until his own deathbed, but it was Mal he had known first and foremost.

It wasn’t his friend’s wife he was grieving; it was a friend of his own.                                                 

They’re meant to be working a job, some small-time corporate extraction, and were due to meet the whole team for their prelim planning session today, but as soon as Eames sees Arthur, he tries to steer him away from the entrance to the office block their base is housed in.

“What are you doing?” Arthur hisses, and yanks his arm out of Eames’ grasp.

“Arthur you’re barely standing up,” Eames says, as gently as he can, “You need some rest and something to fucking eat.”

Arthur looks at him in disgust; it’s not a look Eames enjoys having directed at him, though it is one he has had time to become familiar with. “I’m fully capable of looking after myself thank you,” he says, practically spitting the words at him.

Eames lets his hand fall to his side. “Arthur, I know you hate to hear it but you’re in no condition to be going under today. I won’t let you.”

It turns out to be the worst thing to say because Arthur doesn’t speak to Eames unless absolutely necessary for the rest of the morning and goes under a full 15 minutes with Jeremiah purely, Eames thinks, to spite him. It’s only when Jeremiah sits bolt up right 15 seconds in, yanking the IV out of his arm and protesting angrily that there’s no way in _hell_ he’s going under with someone with that amount of issues to deal with, that Eames thinks he was right.

He goes under in Jeremiah’s place, and understands.

The grief is instantly oppressive; omnipresent in the air like humidity before a storm, weighing down on Eames’ chest until it’s difficult to breathe. He thinks they’re meant to be downtown Vancouver, but it’s far too hot for there to be no leaves on the trees, and the sky is a deep, rolling purple, like waves on the open sea. As Eames stands on the street corner, there’s a colossal cracking sound, the air seeming to split around him, and then a huge crevasse is opening up in the centre of the road, rippling through the tarmac in jagged cracks. 

He finds Arthur sitting on a log on the shore of English Bay, looking out over the ocean. The water is black, like liquid onyx, and completely still even though the wind is bitter here, whipping at Eames’ clothes and sending charred leaves skittering across the pavement. Arthur makes no sign that he’s aware of Eames’ arrival, and doesn’t look up as he sits down next to him.

“It won’t always be like this,” Eames says. There’s a child screaming somewhere; sound carried on the wind, echoing through the streets even though Eames hadn’t seen a single projection. “It’ll get better.”

“I know,” Arthur sounds hollow, “I’m fucked for this job though. You were right.”

Eames is very rarely right in Arthur’s eyes, but he doesn’t even have time to revel in it. He has never seen the defeated slant in Arthur’s shoulders before, the way his hands hang between his knees as though he doesn’t even have the energy to hold them together.

“I’m sorry,” Eames says, even though it’s not enough, even though nothing could ever be enough- because it needs saying, “I know you loved her too and I’m so sorry you lost her.”

And then Arthur is crying, hoarse, desperate sobs like each one hurts him and Eames doesn’t even think twice before wrapping an arm around his shoulders, pulling Arthur in against his chest, cradling him like a child.

The wind doesn’t let up, and the scream carries on, but the dark sky lightens a little, clears at the horizon, until there’s a strip of duck egg blue smudging into yellows and pale pinks just above the black sea.

 

* * *

  

Eames hates Paris.

He knows some would say it’s the born and bred Brit within him, and maybe it is, a little, maybe it’s the principle of the thing to dislike the frogs, but Eames doesn’t hate the _rest_ of France - just Paris.

He hates how it’s become a parody of itself in the past hundred years, embracing its stereotypes as the City of Romance, universally and unconditionally adored for that sole reason, to such an extent it feels like it’s lost any genuine romance it once had; he hates how the Parisians have no time for his French, no matter how perfect the pronunciation, speaking to him in derisive English without so much as a ‘bonjour’; he hates the wide uniform streets, the self-same white architecture throughout the entire city, attractive, iconic and painfully dull; he hates the tourists thronging around the major sights like moths to a flame, only ever looking up at Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower through a camera lens; he fucking detests driving round the Champs de Mars with a fierce passion and most of all, he hates the fact that Arthur loves it so much. 

He’s standing outside an inter-marché, leaning back against the window and using the torrential downpour as an excuse to have a smoke. The street is blurred and colourless, a washed out watercolour of Paris in January, and passer-bys are striding past without looking up, heads ducked against the wind, collars turned up to the horizontal rain.

Arthur emerges from the shop. He folds a newspaper under his coat and shakes out his umbrella, before stopping abruptly at the sight of him.

“Eames,” he says, not sounding especially surprised, though Eames knows full well that Arthur will have last heard of him finishing a job in Kuala Lumpur not two days ago. 

“Arthur,” Eames replies, smiling around the name as he always does, always has done, tilting his head in acknowledgment. “Lovely weather you’re having isn’t it?”

“What are you doing in France?” Arthur ignores the attempt at small talk, just as he always does, “I thought that extradition price on your head was still an inconvenience.”

“Well,” Eames says broadly, “let’s just say I met some very irritating Frenchmen whom I saw as a perfect opportunity to blackmail into sorting that out for me. All water under the _pont_ , love, as they say.”

Arthur nods like this doesn’t particularly interest him. “You lost the beard.”

Eames realises he hasn’t seen him since Russia. He taps ash onto the slick pavement, doesn’t meet Arthur’s eye. “It wasn’t working for me.”

Arthur doesn’t say anything to that, then he shakes out his umbrella again, and pushes it up, making to step out under the sheet of rain streaming off the front of the shop awning.

“Wait-,” Eames calls, it’s been nearly a year, is two minutes outside a supermarket all they’re going to have?- “How’s the leg?”

Arthur looks confused for a full second, before his face blanks over and he raises an eyebrow at Eames. “I’ve taken a bullet before Mr. Eames, as you well know, your concern really isn’t warranted.”

Eames ignores the ‘mister’. There’s nothing he’s resented more than having his name pointedly referred to as his surname. Arthur knows this. 

“I don’t know, I got to know that leg pretty well after stitching it back together- I think I’m justified to be at least somewhat invested in it’s recovery.” Eames feels oddly hot, like he should be embarrassed. Arthur’s still looking at him, more bemused now though.

“It’s fine, thank you,” he says politely, “I owe you for the favour. I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Eames,” and he begins to walk away.

“Hopefully not under the same circumstances,” Eames calls after him, but Arthur doesn’t turn round.

Eames’ hand twitches in his pocket - he can’t leave it like this - not again.

“Arthur,” Eames says again, a little louder, and he hates the edge of slight desperation that he knows colours his voice. Christ, he can be anyone and say anything when the job calls for it, but there’s an Arthur-shaped hole when it comes to Eames’ professional ability and he can never lie to the man, never has been able to. 

Arthur stops, back to him, a dark figure in a grey world.

“How about a drink?” Eames calls across the space between them. It’s only a few feet, but the distance feels impossible. “I don’t leave until tomorrow.”

Arthur finally turns around. The light is too poor and the shadow from the umbrella too dark to make out his expression. 

“I don’t think that would be a good idea Eames.” 

The rain intensifies, pummelling the awning above Eames’ head. It’s finally gotten dark enough for the street lamps to activate, and they begin to flicker on one by one down the road, glowing orange through the sleet. Eames nods once, stamps out his cigarette, and smiles.

“You’re right. Probably not.”

Arthur stands there, shifting from foot to foot. Arthur doesn’t do unease, doesn’t do tension, so Eames is acutely aware of it. He decides to make it easy for him, and steps out into the rain, setting off walking down the street in the opposite direction.

He doesn’t look back to see if Arthur watches him go.

 

* * *

 

Ariadne may be a novice in terms of dreaming and extraction, may be still be learning the ins and outs of world building in a lucid state, of architecture beyond the realms of possibility, and she may not even know how to cook a proper omelette yet, though god knows she’s tried- but she’s not an idiot.

She picks up on tension, the evident shared history between Arthur and Eames, pretty much as soon as she meets the forger.

Eames strolls into the warehouse, hands deep in his pockets, and has eyes only for Arthur, leaning over the PASIV, before Ariadne coughs awkwardly and he seems to remember himself, shaking her hand with a broad smile and a perfectly accented _‘Enchanté’._

Dom keeps her busy with building models and mapping blueprints but she notices it all anyway. The little things that give it away. The fact that when Eames brings them all coffee in the morning he crosses the full length of the warehouse to give Arthur’s his first, the way that when Eames is under Arthur watches him more than the others, brow furrowed slightly, how Eames makes excuses to touch Arthur, pass him his coat, touch his arm in greeting, brush shoulders when they’re packing up.

Then there’s the other things. Less noticeable but far more significant- the way Eames quietly stops off one day at Arthur’s desk to congratulate him on his new niece, how Arthur never, ever, _ever_ asks Eames what he wants for lunch, like he does everyone else, just turns up with a bizarre order that Eames tucks into happily, the way when just the two of them go under sometimes the first thing they do when they wake up is look at each other, like they’re the only thing that matters in the real world.

Ariadne had spent most of her first year at university in a country where she didn’t speak the language. She’d had few friends at the start, but had mostly spent her time watching other people. She didn’t know character and personality like Eames, didn’t analyse them and break them apart to reveal their weak spots like Arthur, but she was perceptive and she knew for certain that the two men couldn’t just be colleagues.

“How do Arthur and Eames know each other?” She asked Yusuf one day, deciding he was the safest option and least likely to question her motives.

Yusuf was squinting at a tray of test tubes from behind thick goggles. “Why do you ask?”

Damn. Ariadne bit her lip, fiddled with the frayed edge of her scarf. “No reason- they just seem to have history." 

Yusuf chuckled, leant back in his chair and surveyed Ariadne over the goggles. “I can’t say I know the whole story, though I’m sure there is one. They met in the military I believe, before Arthur even knew Cobb. It was ‘hate at first sight’ as Eames tells me,” and then he takes a sip of his tea and goes back to work.

Ariadne tries Cobb next, when they’re out walking around the business district of Paris, comparing notes on office designs and architecture that could be useful.

Cobb shoots her an assessing look through narrowed eyes when she asks. “Why do you want to know?" 

Ariadne shrugs. “It makes for an interesting workplace environment with the two of them around.”

Cobb nods like that’s a valid reasoning. “They’ve known each other for years. 1999 I think was when they first met, maybe 2000. PASIVs were top secret military intel then. Arthur was with the American trial recruits, Eames the British. They didn’t go into dream-sharing commercially with each other, but I don’t think it’s surprised anyone that they keep ending up working together.” 

It’s still not really the answer Ariadne is looking for.

“But are they like… _together_ together?” Ariadne feels like she is 14 again, the fact she is having this conversation with Cobb makes it even more excruciating, “Like, non-professionally?”

Dom raises an eyebrow at her. “Arthur is gay Ariadne, has been for as long as I’ve known him. Though I’m sure he’d be very flattered I don’t think-“

“ _Jesus_ I know that!” Ariadne could feel herself blushing furiously, “I’m not _interested_ in him, I’m just, interested in- I don’t know, they seem different around each other, I was curious! It doesn’t matter, forget I asked.”

They’re walking past a foyer to an insurance head office with a glass entrance two stories high, and Ariadne stops to make a note of the transparent hinges (and so she can hide her face till the god awful blush goes away.)

Ariadne had assumed the conversation was over with mutual uncomfortableness on both sides enough to stop it coming back up, but they’re walking back to the metro when Dom suddenly says-

“If I’m being honest, I don’t know. They were friends once, I think.”

“ _Friends?”_ The idea doesn’t seem to compute in an equation of Arthur and Eames.

Dom nods, then frowns. “Not that it’s really my business. If you want to know you should ask them yourself.”

 

* * *

 

Ariadne isn’t an idiot (see above), so she waits until Eames calls a team night off, insisting they’ve all been working far too hard these past few weeks, and drags them to a bar in a part of Paris Ariadne doesn’t think is visited too often by tourists.

Arthur doesn’t drink much, but sips on the neat martinis he orders like they’re water. Dom nurses beer after beer, steadily getting louder and louder, and Yusuf chooses the most flamboyant fruity cocktail they have, and then orders three more, and is practically gone by 10 o’clock.

Eames has a bit of everything, spending quite a lot of time surreptitiously stealing other people’s drinks, before buying everyone another round. Ariadne can’t tell if he’s drunk, or if this is just how Eames is in his down time, but she watches him watch Arthur out of the corner of his eye and decides that if nothing else, she is definitely drunk enough to embarrass herself.

“Eames,” she hisses, leaning over to him when Arthur excuses himself to go to the bathroom. “I have a question. An important question.”

“Hmm? Fire away poppet,” Eames says fondly, patting her hand. He pushes a glass of water at her that Ariadne pointedly ignores, because, ha ha, good try Eames, but she’s not going to be distracted from this.

“You and Arthur,” she starts, and then realises she has no idea how to finish this. She pauses, Dom has stopped mid-awful joke he’d been telling to Yusuf, and is staring at her with a look of dawning horror.

“You and Arthur?” she tries, hoping it’s self-explanatory. 

Eames’ face has gone very still. Then he smiles, slow and dark; the kind of smile that gets him into people’s safes and then into their beds.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he says, and Ariadne hasn't any idea what to do with that.

 She frowns. Further cryptic clues were not what she was after.

“Are you together? Were you together?” She prompts.

Eames’ eyes are impossible to read. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

He sounds a little colder than before, there’s an edge to his voice that if Ariadne were sober she’d know to stop about now, know to back up and apologise, but she’s drunk, drunker than she’s been in a while, and Eames has that charm about him, that certain quality that she’s never met in anyone else, that while his livelihood is constructed on deceit and lies and trickery, he inspires honesty in others.

“You barely take your eyes off him,” she says, because she doesn’t know what she thinks, but that much is true.

Yusuf chokes on his cocktail, and Ariadne can feel Dom’s eyes boring into the side of her face, disapproving vibes radiating from him. She imagines he didn’t think she’d actually be brave enough to try asking either of them. But Eames laughs, tilts his glass towards her.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” he says, all warmth and fondness again and then Arthur’s clambering back into his seat and complaining that the bathroom is a shit-hole and Eames is never choosing the bar again and would anyone like another drink because he doesn’t think he’s paid his fair share-

The conversation moves on, and it’s only the next day, lying in bed and regretting all of her decisions from the night before, particularly the one surrounding accepting tequila from Yusuf, that Ariadne realises she has no better idea about Arthur and Eames than she ever did.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time they see each other outside of the military, Eames is in hospital.

Eames doesn’t need to open his eyes- surrounded by soft shhing sounds and bleeping, lying in a bed of crisp, institutional linen- to know that he’s lost a significant amount of time. The last thing he remembers is sprinting along the rain-slicked streets of Edinburgh, odd socks sodden in patent leather shoes, the edge of the night sky a pale, misty grey to the east.

He shifts, blinks blearily up at the ceiling, and sees a figure at the window.

Arthur is looking out at the view, half his body in shadow, back to the bed. It’s strange to see him out of khaki. It’s strange to see him at all- god it’s been years- and Eames’ hands flex beneath the sheets. He wants to say so much, but he can’t think how to start.

“Morning,” he says in the end, voice hoarse. He licks his lips.

Arthur doesn’t move. “It’s 4:30 in the afternoon. You’ve been out for nearly 2 days.” He sounds just the same; clipped, and practical, as if words should be used sparingly, and preferably only when they can be applied with a liberal amount of sarcasm. The recognition ripples through Eames, warm and familiar, and he can’t help but smile.

He shifts again, grits his teeth when white hot pain shoots up his spine; he could do with some more morphine right about now.

“Not that Scotland isn’t a wonderful place to be in February,” he says conversationally, “but may I ask what brings you to my bedside?”

Arthur sighs, and finally turns round. He moves into the light, and his hair is longer since Eames last saw him, fully grown out of the military cut and slicked back from his face, making him look much older than Eames knows he is. His face is tired, more lined, but god, Eames’ breath catches in his throat and he tries to disguise it as a cough, he’s still just beautiful as ever.

“You flat-lined twice Eames,” Arthur passes him a plastic cup of water as Eames gets the coughing under control. “And I’m still your only registered emergency contact. They called me after you’d gone into surgery.”

“Ah,” says Eames, and takes the water. The cup crumples a little in his shaking hand.

Arthur doesn’t sound disapproving, although there’s a slight edge of warning to his voice that Eames remembers all too well. If anything, he seems more concerned than angry, and Eames is grateful for that.

“I see you’ve gone commercial too,” Arthur says, taking the seat by Eames bed, folding his hands in his lap, “though you should have known that working with Dmitri was a suicidal move.”

Eames laughs, and it turns into another coughing fit. 

“Oh believe me, I knew.”

Anger flashes across Arthur’s face, a flare of uncontrolled emotion that Eames lives for, and then he sighs.

“I would have thought you would have grown out of throwing yourself on grenades.” His lips are twitching in a smile, and Christ, how Eames had missed him.

Eames winks at him, tilts the cup in his direction. “Never too young to die Arthur, you know that.” He considers, “plus, the money was ridiculous. Dmitri has no idea how western European conversions operate.”

Arthur huffs a laugh, eyes crinkling. “He has Elena as his go-to accountant, I’m pretty sure no one wants to screw him over more than her.”

Eames grins, makes an agreeing noise, and it’s so casual, so easy, that there’s a tight, growing bubble of hope expanding in his chest- it all feels so natural, as though no time has passed at all. Could it just go back to how they’d always been? Could they go back to this? 

Arthur has leant over to snatch up Eames’ clipboard from the end of the bed. The pale sunlight is warm on his skin, hands elegant as he flicks through the sheets of paper, brow furrowed. He reaches the last page, and pauses. Eames knows what he’s looking at. 

“You really shouldn’t have me as your next of kin,” he says quietly, and looks up, dark eyes meeting Eames’. “It’s dangerous. Could cause all kinds of complications.”

Eames smiles, feels the feeling of hope fade, dimming into nothing.

“Arthur, darling, surely you should know by now? There really isn’t anyone else.”

 

* * *

 

 

 Arthur remembers the start of his 20th birthday unpleasantly vividly.

The day began at 4:00am with a 30km hike into the desert. The Nevada sun is unforgiving, climbing higher and higher into a bleached blue sky, heat haze shimmering on every horizon, the dust getting into their eyes and ears and every seam of clothing.

His patrol are quiet, not fully awake for another full day after seven days straight of intense physical drills and training missions. They’re dream recruits, trainees for the new experimental PASIV technology, the ‘Dream Team’ as Arthur had heard them called on more than one occasion, but they’ve yet to go into any actual dream-simulation. As the sergeant had told them with a grim smile, they were going to be no good in the dream-state if they couldn’t handle the basics in reality.

Arthur licks his lips, already cracked and dried in the full blaze of the sun. They’ve got full kit on their backs, nearly a third of their body weight and his shoulders are aching, chest muscles straining. It’s an overnight find and recall mission with a 24 hours time frame and no satellite communication, simple enough and something they’ve all gone through before; though never in competition against three other units. They’d known it was an international project, but hadn’t known quite how international until they’d seen the medic boxes marked with Union Jacks and the Japanese-issue tanks. The sergeant had made it clear that anyone they met out in the desert was to be treated as the enemy, regardless of their uniform. There were no allies in training missions like this.

They’ve been walking for hours, moving along a wide cliff edge high up in the valley now, when Jackson halts them from the front with a silent hand. He signals- _hostiles up ahead-_ and the boredom and aching joints are forgotten in an instant. The patrol immediately sink into the shadow of a nearby overhanging rock face. The orange dirt falls into Arthur’s face and he blinks through watering eyes, heart pounding against his ribs.

It’s a training exercise, he knows it, but god, out in the still silence fully armed, it’s easy to forget, get lost in the reality of the situation. A ‘bullet’ out here won’t kill you, but their guns are equipped with lasers, their uniforms with sensors, and getting carelessly ‘shot’ at this stage could be easily enough to get you a one way ticket off the base, off the programme, and back home.

After two years of training, drilling, and elimination processes; after sacrificing further education and any relationship he could have maybe worked on with his father, Arthur thinks he’d rather take a real bullet than failure at this point.

Jackson as command leader moves in first, keeping low, and rounding the corner gun first. There’s a shout from the hostiles almost instantly, “Incoming!” barked in a non-American accent, and then the gunfire starts, every bullet a blank, but deafeningly loud and all too realistic in the shallow basin of rock they’re in, and adrenalin kicks Arthur’s heart up another notch. Underneath the gunfire, Arthur can hear sharp bleeps; each one registering a successful hit on their uniforms.

By the time Arthur rounds the corner- it’s fucking chaos. They’ve not just run into one team but two, indistinguishable in their identical desert khaki, but evident in their numbers and the shouted fragments of command. The Japanese are up on a ledge of the rock basin, with a far better view but barely any coverage, the British- Arthur recognises the accent now- are along the opposite side, ducking behind large outcrops of rock and taking it in turns to fire at them and the Japanese.

A sharp bleep sounds around Arthur’s left elbow, and he throw himself behind the rock in front of him, cursing. Not a serious injury if it had been real, but a liability.

What a way to spend a birthday, Arthur thinks out of nowhere, and then Gibbs is shouting for cover, and Arthur doesn’t have time to think.

It’s a bloodless battle, but a brutal one nonetheless. Jackson runs out of blanks first in their team, but it seems that a couple of the British have too, and then it’s hand-to-hand combat with no holding back. Despite Arthur’s best attempts, Gibbs gets a shot to the chest, and his vest lets out a long continuous whine- a flat-line. Gibbs curses angrily, and slumps behind the rock, knowing this effectively has ended his contribution to their advance.

And then- suddenly, a shout goes up amongst the Japanese, and a small dark object is hurled from the ledge into the basin of rock between the two camps. It bounces, bleeping; landing just feet from Arthur and the air goes still before Jackson screams, “Grenade!” and is hurling himself to cover-

Arthur had no idea grenades were being included in the exercise, doesn’t remember being told how they worked, how they triggered the uniforms, if at all- and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a game.

Before Arthur can even register what he’s doing he’s hurdling the rocky outcrop in front of him to get to the grenade, only aware of the fact his patrol are too close and an explosive of that size is going to have an impact fatality zone of 5 metres at least and if he can just get there-

Except someone beats him to it. A soldier from the other side of the battlefield has vaulted his own stretch of cover as Arthur had, shouting to his squad to get back, and has flung himself bodily on the grenade, curling over it in the dust.

“Get back you fucker- get _back_!” he roars at Arthur.

Arthur is too stunned to move, just stands there staring at the Brit on the ground in front of him, who just lay on a grenade-

There’s a soft tick, the bleeping stops, and the Brit’s uniform lets out a long continuous whine. Flat-lined.

It was a dud.

The basin is silent for a long moment.

“Well that’s a bloody relief,” the soldier says, and rolls off the harmless grenade. “Sorry I beat you to your moment of glory, mate.”

“I was going to kick it off the cliff,” Arthur says, bluntly, “not fucking _lie_ on it.”

Behind him, Arthur hears Gibbs snigger, and the soldier on the ground laughs outright. He hauls himself to his feet, shaking dust out of his hair. He’s young, probably only a few years older than Arthur, with bright blue-green eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose.

“Seeing as we seem to have reached an apparent ceasefire,” the man sticks out his hand, “Eames, British SAS.”

Arthur, feeling thoroughly unsure of the situation, takes the hand and they shake. “Arthur, none-of-your-fucking-business." 

Eames laughs again- Arthur’s never met a recruit who’s laughed this much- and he turns to his patrol with open arms. “I think it’s over boys, the yanks have out-sassed us.” 

The Brits laugh and curse, and one calls “Eames, I think this classes as fraternising with the enemy,” but they’re standing up from behind their cover, and Arthur’s unit are getting to their feet too, and it looks like it’s all over.

As it turns out the Brits had smuggled beer to make up their bags’ weight, and the Japs had been made to carry extra ration packs, so by the time the sun starts to dip in the sky, they’ve collectively decided to fuck the system, and celebrate the end of their training with a little mutual fraternisation on all sides.

Jackson and a Japanese soldier named Takeshi start up a bonfire with dried shrubs and a few survival blankets as fuel in the centre of the rock-cut basin, and they heat up the ration packs and cans of beans, sharing the different basic flavours as dolled out by their respective military organisations. The Brits crack open the beers and share them around, and as the afternoon edges into evening, Arthur feels like he could be anywhere but on a top secret military training programme.

He’s sitting on the cliff ledge, feet dangling into the space below, when Eames drops down next to him, pressing a lukewarm beer into Arthur’s hands.

“So, Arthur - running towards grenades, tend to do that often?” his voice is warm, words shaped by a British accent so stereotypical Arthur knows his sister would be swooning.

“I don’t know, do you regularly risk your life for the enemy?” Arthur fires back. He’s being hostile, he knows he is - he can’t help it, his first instinct has always been to defend himself in case he’s being attacked without him realising.

Eames tilts his head, makes a questioning noise. “Not just the enemy. My patrol were close enough to be hit too. It was a command decision.”

Arthur glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Eames has three stars sewn onto his jacket sleeve. Captain. Arthur’s isn’t all that surprised.

“How very gallant of you,” he says, just this side of sarcastic, and Eames laughs.

“One could say the same about you darling.”

“God, you’re so British it’s disgusting.”

“Always so fervently hostile to people trying to be nice to you Arthur The American?” Eames is grinning, unrelenting- Christ, Arthur isn’t used to being surrounded by such insistent positivity- but he can feel himself smiling. 

“There we go,” Eames coos, and Arthur flips him off, trying to bite down the smile.

“Oi! Eamsie! Fraternising doesn’t include blatant flirting!” one of the Brits shouts from behind them, “leave the poor sod alone!”

Arthur tenses, but Eames turns round and shouts back ,“Piss off you subordinating bastard,” still smiling.

Arthur can’t relax - jokes about flirting get thrown around all the time, he showers, eats and sleeps with 20 other full-blooded, testosterone fuelled young men for god’s sake - but DADT has hung over Arthur like a dark curtain ever since he joined the service, and he’s always on edge when such jibes get directed at him.

Eames seems to notice the tension.

“Hey, it’s alright mate, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Arthur shoots him a sidelong look. He has known Eames for all of several hours. He has absolutely no grounds to trust him with a secret this big.

“You’re not really my type if I’m honest,” Eames whispers, and he winks.

Something in Arthur’s chest eases then, an ache he hadn’t realised he’d been harbouring.

“Really?” he whispers back, and he suddenly feels like he’s 14 again, figuring out he wasn’t the only one for the first time.

“Oh absolutely,” Eames promises, and his smile is genuine this time, somehow quieter, without the brash and show of earlier. “You’re far from alone in that respect Arthur.”

No one had ever said Arthur’s name quite like Eames does, the r soft on his lips, and Arthur doesn’t know why but it reassures him like nothing else has, and he knows, instantly, that Eames can’t be that bad. 

Years later, Arthur can’t remember what they talked about for the rest of the evening, but he knows he didn’t talk to anyone else. He and Eames had sat on that outcrop until the sun set in a blazing ball of fire, and he’d admitted it was his birthday. Then Eames had dragged him up by the campfire and led everyone in a rousing, drunken chorus of happy birthday, which Arthur blushed furiously throughout the entirety of, sending Eames death glares for betraying his trust, and Eames had just laughed until he cried and handed him another beer.

Then they’d laid out their sleep sacks together off to one side without acknowledging what they were doing, without even questioning it, so they could keep talking long into the night. Arthur never saw stars again like he saw that night, vast and never-ending, multiplying the more you looked, the milky way a cloudy blur streaking through the blackness, shooting stars splitting the sky like the blade of a silver knife and Eames’ voice a constant low murmuring in his ear.

Eames fell asleep curled towards Arthur in his sack, breath warm against Arthur’s hair, and it had felt only natural for Arthur to turn towards him too, keeping their warmth and secret between them.

 

* * *

 

 

When their superiors take them off training and into PASIV trials, it is, ironically enough, a harsh return to reality.

They don’t bother keeping the countries separate anymore, seeing as the benefits of not knowing who else was on the programme no longer applied, and put them in together in dream state war zones across the globe. Arthur hacks the system and moves his and Eames’ timetables so they’re parallel and they share the same dream time; it’s unprofessional to the extreme, but Arthur trusts Eames like he doesn’t trust anyone else in his squad, and, if he’s honest, he wants to spend time with him. Eames is staggeringly smart, quick, deathly competent, and he makes Arthur laugh.

Arthur isn’t the type to make friends easily, and yet Eames seems to have snuck under his defences.

Eames grins like a kid when Arthur tells him what he’s done to their timetables in the mess hall one lunch. “Bloody hell Arthur, didn’t have you down for such a rebel - I like it.”

Arthur scoffs, steals Eames’ fries and offloads his extra gravy onto Eames’ tray. “My theory is, it can’t be too bad if you know someone down there. If you’ve got some hold on reality.”

Arthur wasn’t often wrong. He hadn’t made a habit of it throughout life, but in this case, he could not have been more so.

It’s horrific - weeks stretched into months stretched into almost a whole year. In dream time of course, it felt more like five. Five years on tour across the globe in various dream-states, getting blown up and beaten and killed in the most horrific ways imaginable on a daily basis. Being with Eames doesn’t make it easier; it just makes it worse. Arthur loses track of the number of times Eames dies in his arms, the number of times he dies in Eames’. 

The first time Arthur puts a bullet in Eames’ brain to send him back up topside after losing a leg, when he wakes up there are tears tracing silently down his cheeks; he hasn’t cried since he was seven.

It gets to the point that Eames slips into Arthur’s room in the middle of the night, not able to sleep for nightmares so vivid he wakes himself up screaming, begging Arthur to swap their schedules, so at least they won’t have to watch each other die. 

Arthur tries, but within two days, they’re reassigned back together.

As the sergeant says with the benign attitude of someone who doesn’t know how it feels to hold your intestines in your bare hands - “You work too well together, PASIV technology only achieves so much- you and Captain Eames are something special.”

It’s true. They’re a team in everything, an unstoppable force, in sync like no other soldiers in the programme. The effects of dream-sharing encourages isolation, breaks down social relationships, but Arthur and Eames endure it like no one else- Eames endlessly positive, Arthur, blindingly sarcastic. And it’s okay.

When one day in late September 2001 they’re assigned to another division of dream-sharing, off the experimental section of base, Eames promises Arthur that it must be a good thing. A promotion of sorts. Less experimentation meant less gory deaths, surely.

Except the bombs were dropping in Afghanistan, smoke still hung in the street corners of New York, and the US government wanted answers.

The only dreams Arthur ever has for the rest of his life will be the nightmares surrounding the interrogations they were forced into leading.

They try to refuse at first, try to get out of it, but then there’s a candid photo of Arthur’s sister on the table because if there’s anything the US government know how to do it’s blackmail, and Eames agrees before even Arthur can.

Eames takes it better than he does. He has a way of distancing himself from the reality of what they’re doing that Arthur could never hope to mirror. Eames treats it like it’s a game almost, putting on a persona that isn’t him, wearing a different skin where his voice cruel and his patience thin and his blows unforgiving- until Arthur can barely recognise the man who threw himself on a dud grenade to save his squadron.

He scares Arthur sometimes, but he knows it’s how Eames copes.

It’s 3am one morning, or at least Arthur thinks it is, he can’t remember the last time he got an actual night of real sleep, when they’re walking back to their rooms after another session with another nameless prisoner, that Eames suddenly pulls Arthur to one side, pressing him into the shadow of an alcove, and when he speaks, his voice is rushed and frantic-

“I can’t cope with much more of this. I know it’s awful and horrible for both of us but, Jesus Christ, I can see how much it’s hurting you and it’s _killing me_ to watch you fall apart like this Arthur, this isn’t _you_.”

“They have my sister Eames,” Arthur says. There’s no inflection in his voice, he’s too tired these days, too resigned to this. He barely feels horrified by what he’s doing anymore; he’s just numb.

Eames slams his hand into the wall beside him. “Goddamn it Arthur! You think I don’t know that? Just, get yourself reassigned alright? Get yourself out of here. I’ll carry on until we’ve got something to give them that they want.”

Arthur looks at him. They both know that’s not going to work.

Eames slumps on the opposite side of the alcove, suddenly defeated.

“Arthur, you don’t know how much I-“ Eames starts, and then breaks off, the words drying up.

“I’ve never had a friend like you, alright? I can’t bear to see you like this,” Eames laughs then; it’s an unpleasant sound, “even like this you’re still the only good thing in my life.”

It’s more than either of them have ever said in terms of what they mean to each other. 

It’s more than Arthur was expecting.

Arthur meets his gaze for a long moment, he feels weak with exhaustion; Eames is the first to look away, hand fiddling in his pocket with what Arthur knows is the poker chip he’s taken to carrying around lately. Arthur thinks, suddenly, that Eames might cry.

“It’ll be okay,” Arthur says. 

When Eames wakes up the next morning, it’s to a transfer order back to England. His services are no longer required in the PASIV programme. He’s to go home immediately.

He doesn’t even have time to say goodbye.

 

* * *

 

  

“Eames, this can’t go on.”

Eames stiffens, hand closing round the condensation-slick glass in front of him. He laughs, low and hollow, and slaps the sticky bar with his other palm, turning around as he does so.

Arthur is standing behind him, dripping. His hair has fallen into his face, the rain washing out all the gel, and he looks cold.

He smiles. “Arthur, I thought you said a drink wouldn’t be a good idea?”

“It isn’t,” Arthur’s eyes dart down, glancing at where Eames is playing with his poker chip between his fingers. “And I’m not here for a drink, I’m here to talk.”

Eames shrugs, turns back to lean both elbows on the bar.

He’d known this conversation would happen at some point. He doesn’t feel on edge, anxious like he thought he might, he just feels tired. It’s been a long time coming.

Arthur takes the stool next to him, opens his mouth a couple of times, like he’s about to say something, and then seems to collect himself to start again. Eames has never seen Arthur lost for words.

“I don’t know how you feel about me-,” Arthur starts, pacing himself with each word and god, it’s so clinical, it’s so distant and so, so much worse than Eames had imagined-

“I have never cared about anyone as much as I care about you,” Eames hears himself say, because he can’t bear to let Arthur go on. This isn’t how he wanted to do this, this isn’t how he wanted anything at all, but god it’s long overdue. “I never stopped caring.”

Arthur is very, very still next to him.

When Eames glances at him, he sees Arthur’s closed his eyes. 

“I know,” Arthur says, “fuck, Eames, I’ve always known.”

Eames freezes. He feels abruptly cold all over.

“What?” he rasps.

Arthur doesn’t look at him. “Of course I knew. Christ, you couldn’t have been more obvious, that’s why I asked you to be moved-“

Eames is shaking. “Hold on a second. You mean to say you were fully aware that I was absolutely, completely and whole-heartedly in love with you, and that was _why you had me reassigned?_ ” 

The bustling background sounds from the bar have faded into white noise - Eames can hear nothing but a high-pitched ringing and the furious beating of his own heart. “I thought you hated me- all this time, I never knew why after Nevada, I thought you'd grown out of me or-,” he can’t finish. 

Arthur looks miserable. He rakes a hand through his hair hard enough to hurt. “I was trying to do the right thing- I didn’t want to hurt you more than I knew I already was. I can’t be that for you Eames, I’m sorry, sometimes I wish I could but I can’t. I never could.”

“Christ,” Eames breathes; he feels winded, “fucking hell you’re a piece of work Arthur.”

“I still care about you Eames, god,” Arthur sounds a little desperate now, and Eames is glad it’s finally filtering through because it’s about fucking time, “you were my best friend, the only thing that kept me going some days, I owe you my life a hundred times over and-“

“You don’t owe me anything,” Eames says automatically, but Arthur ploughs on-

“And I know this is hard for you, but I understand alright? I try to be professional and you just won’t give up and I get it, or at least, I’m trying to- but whatever we’re doing right now isn’t working. I don’t want to _not_ see you-“ 

Eames feels light-hearted, and he laughs, high and verging on hysterical. God, he can barely go a day without thinking about Arthur- not seeing him ever _again_ \- Eames has known pain, and he can’t imagine anything worse.

“- so we have to try for a compromise, alright? We can be friends, I know we can.”

He hasn’t the slightest idea, Eames thinks, dazedly.

“Don’t you think trying to be your friend is exactly what I’ve spent the past 10 years doing Arthur?”

Arthur looks stricken, the façade finally crumbling away, and Eames feels a vicious wave of vindication.

“No,” Arthur says, expression hardening, “no, you’ve spent them saying nothing but thinking everything. I know you Eames, I know you have. You’ve got to stop this, you’re hurting both of us.”

Arthur leans forward, and his hand meets Eames’ on the bar top, fingers cold and tangling in his. Eames closes his eyes. 

“You’ve got to let me go,” Arthur’s voice is soft. 

Eames says nothing. Arthur says he understands, that’s he tried to understand, but Arthur has never had the imagination to comprehend anything like this. He has no idea how many times Eames has tried to walk away, how many times Eames has tried to find something in someone else that bears even the faintest shadow of resemblance to what he feels for Arthur-

Eames knows he is never going to be able to stop loving him.

“I don’t want you to cause you pain,” Arthur says - he causes Eames pain just by existing- how can he not know this by now-, “I just want to know if we can be friends. Can you try? Please?”

Arthur’s pleading, Eames realises. This is as close as he will ever get to it in his life. He understands Eames better than anyone, but will never fully appreciate how much Eames understands him. Eames looks up at Arthur, meets his dark eyes in the yellow light of the bar. Arthur is in pain over this; Eames can tell. He can imagine how many nights Arthur has spent worrying over him, over broaching this topic, how to let Eames down without losing him completely-

Because Arthur _does_ care, Eames knows that, knows it in the way Arthur will drop everything and travel 4,000 miles to visit Eames in hospital, knows it in the lunches and coffees Eames doesn’t ask for but are always exactly what he needs, knows it in the way Arthur let himself break down in front of Eames after Mal’s death all those years ago, let himself fall apart in a way he never had until the only thing holding him together were Eames’ arms, knows it now, in the way Arthur is rubbing his thumb gently over Eames’ knuckles, careful and methodical and knowing, his hands and touch suffused with knowledge- with things remembered and a history neither of them will ever be able to forget.

Eames pulls his hand out from beneath Arthur’s.

He turns to him, smiles broadly. His life is full of so many lies even he gets a little lost sometimes, looses track of the thin thread of reality in a tapestry of fake names, false deals and broken promises. 

What’s one more.

He can do this much.

“Alright,” he says. “I can try.”


End file.
